Bangladeshi actor-politician Asaduzzaman Noor, who served as cultural affairs minister from 2014 to 2019 under Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League government, said on Monday that the government and the party had failed to understand people’s sentiments and citizens were unhappy.
The Awami League MP argued that there were several other underlying reasons apart from the reservation protests that fuelled the anti-government sentiment, leading to the worst violence in the country.
“…actually, people were not happy. I mean, they were quite unhappy about a lot of things and probably we failed to understand the pulse of the people and did not take it seriously,” Noor told India Today. He said people were “under a lot of pressure” due to the rise in prices of everyday items.
“I mean the middle class or the working class is under a lot of pressure, financial pressure, because prices are rising and I think corruption is also an important factor,” he said.
Asaduzzaman Noor’s residence was also vandalised and set on fire by protesters. Protesters targeted residences and offices of Awami League leaders across the country on Sunday and Monday.
He said, “I urged them to maintain peace and avoid conflict. This was my message to everyone, including my party. But today, I found that it is not working. First, they vandalised my house and now I hear that they have set it on fire.”
“That was my house, my ancestral house, where I actually lived. It’s in my constituency. When I go to my constituency, that’s where I stay,” added Asaduzzaman Noor, a lawmaker who has represented the Nilphamari-2 constituency since 2001.
He alleged that enforcement officials were “not taking care of Dhaka.”
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned on Monday amid violent protests that have rocked the country over the past few weeks. The country witnessed heavy violence on Sunday in which 97 people died when protesters marched to Dhaka. Meanwhile, Hasina resigned from her post and left the country.
Angry protesters stormed the prime minister’s residence as well as parliament. Thousands of protesters took to the streets as the military announced that an interim government would take power.